I know, I know - it's the "n" word (NRA). Apologies to the delicate ones, but it is in the title of the piece.

The article presents interesting correlations of violence with various environmental factors and proposes some things that can be done to reduce violent behavior.

Not surprisingly many of these proposals are social (gasp) policies including mental and physical health, alcohol use and parenting and school programs. It goes without saying that any program must be funded. But I hear that weapons manufacturers are raking it right now, and that corporate entities in general are sitting on billions if not trillions in cash and have nothing to spend it on.

Here are a dozen policies that would cut assault and homicide rates  but that have nothing to do with guns. That said, while they won't annoy the NRA, they often have their own set of powerful lobbies to confront.

A lot of theories have been posed for explaining the fall in crime rates, and in particular violent crime rates, since the 1990s. Did "broken windows" policing work? What about data-driven approaches like CompStat? Was it that legal abortion allowed unprepared mothers to delay parenthood, and spare their kids childhood environments that might encourage criminality later on? Or does the falling price of cocaine explain it?
None of the above. The real answer, it's now becoming clear, is lead. In the 1970s, the environmental movement succeeded in getting lead out of gasoline and household paint, and the result has been smarter, less violent kids. Economist Rick Nevin has found that, if you add a 23-year lag, variations in lead exposure explain 90 percent of the variation in crime rates in the United States.

....

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that a lot of violent youth just need a good therapist.

Multi-systemic therapy (MST), for instance, intensively targets juvenile offenders with four months of therapy, occurring multiple times a week with therapists with very small caseloads. Three randomized trials have found positive effects. Around 14 years on, one study found youth participating had spent 57 percent fewer days incarcerated than the control group. Another found that arrest rates for aggressive crimes were 75 percent lower in the treatment group four years on than in the control group. The third found 39 percent fewer arrests in the treatment group after only two years.

Oddly I do not see anything related to smoking - one of my personal pet peeves. There are an estimated 46,000 deaths per year that are related to second hand smoke. Not to mention a laundry list associated health issues.